EU Rejects Cooperation with Foreign Far-Right Forces

The European continent is experiencing a great rise of the right populism. The power has already been taken by the right parties in some countries, while in other countries they're just getting possibility to influence the national policy. If earlier it referred only to countries in Eastern Europe, then today strengthening of right parties may be shown up by Denmark (Danish People's Party), Italy (Lega Nord), Austria (Freedom Party of Austria), and even Germany where the Alternative for Germany has become the main opposition power. The National Rally's leader Marine Le Pen could break on through to the second tour during the presidential elections of the last year where it was Emmanuel Macron who could only make her to give up. The Swedish democrats took another toll on the EU by achieving superb results in the elections to the Riksdag.

The EU leadership is seriously concerned with the increasing popularity of the eurosceptics. The European centrist and left parties, accustomed to the power, feel that their ideas are becoming less and less attractive. Traditional politicians of the Old World, as well both the media and expert organizations associated with them, heatedly criticize the right politicians, trying to outdo each other. For instance, European functionaries have changed their mind towards a famous Russian politician and public person Alexey Navalny who back in the day was supported by some Western countries. He became popular thanks to his investigations of corruption in Russia and harsh criticism against the authorities. Despite the biography full of scandals and criminal cases, many people consider him to be the Russian opposition leader and a fighter for democracy. He even got in 2015 a human rights award for the struggle against totalitarian regimes, which is given out every year by the Platform of European memory and Conscience to those ones who are fighting against totalitarianism and for the ideals of democracy, rule of the law, human rights and liberties. This year Navalny was once again included in the list of the nominees, but the European Commission recommended the organization leaders to write him off.

From the perspective of the view of the European Commission, "Alexey Navalny's second nomination will both discredit the Platform itself and the idea of resisting totalitarianism as well, since Mr. Navalny has proved to be an odious nationalist with explicitly right-wing views". Definitely, lots of the Russian opposition politician's statements fit into a repertoire of very right politicians and radical nationalists, and the threats directed against his political opponents as well as straightly xenophobic attitudes contradict the traditions of liberalism. His participations in the Russian march, which is held every year by the representatives of Russian nationalistic organizations and movements in various cities of Russia, can't be forgotten. A Russian left-oriented political leader Sergey Udaltsov is suggested to be included in the nominee list by the EU authorities instead of Navalny who doesn't fit into the European representations of democracy with his statements. He also harshly criticizes the authorities, and is still an active participant of opposition demonstrations that caused several arrests by the police. Udaltsov was even sentenced to imprisonment in 2014 for organization of mass riots.

It's worth noting that the EU leaders' concerns have a real background. The political map of Europe is changing very fast: people who back in the day were down for globalization and open borders, today feel vulnerable and unprotected, stumbling across the outcomes of the traditional EU policy, which led to a migration crisis. A negative reaction to both the huge influx of migrants to Europe and the inactivity of the EU have led to a loss of confidence towards the authorities and an increase of far right sentiments. At that moment radical political power has come into the picture that backs on national and sometimes nationalistic mottos. Being firm foes of migrant assimilation policy, these parties actively criticize the pale policy of the European Union and call upon a significant tightening of the migration legislation. The far rightists, who used to focus their activity on the inner domains and struggled against national governments, today go out to the European arena and tend to consolidate their efforts for the fight against the common enemy - the European Union. The ruling political powers try to find an effective way to fight against the rightists and to stop the growth of radical sentiments. However, we'll know in the nearest future if their actions will be successful against a well-prepared and gaining popularity enemy.

Are people not just fed up of being treared like mushrooms? We have the United states of Europe, where countries are being told what they can and cannot do by other nations and cannot even decide how many migrants/immigrants they must admit. Hungary has been told by the EU that they must take a quota of people. They have told the EU what they can do with their quotas. Other EU nations are standing by just waiting for the UK to finally extricate themselves from the monster known as the EU. When that happens perhaps more countries will start the process of leaving rhe EU.

People are generally fed up with being told what to do, what they can and cannot say, how they must think, what they must accept.

These are dangerous times. There is lot of anger, cynisism, bad feeling etc. Might be a case of watch this space.